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As most of you know, AC Milan is one of the best clubs in
football history and its history is one of the most interesting
of all. This history contains two ups and downs, one between
the two World Wars and one in the late 70's and early 80's.

The first two decades in AC Milan's history were very good.
They won the first title in 1901 against Genoa, one of the
leading teams of the championship at that time (the championship
was composed of regional leagues and the winner of each league
were invited to take place in a playoff, the winners being
declared Italian Champions). Two consecutive titles came in
1906 and 1907, the victims being Juve in 1906 and Torino along
with Andrea Doria (this team merged later with another team
from Genoa to form Sampdoria Genoa) in 1907. An important
negative event took place in 1908, when a part of malcontents
from the club formed a club named Internazionale Milano. The
first match against Inter has been played on the 18th of October
1908, Milan winning 2-1. Then, the championship was interrupted
during the first World War, when a Federal Cup was played,
Milan winning it.

In the period between the two World Wars no important events
took place, except the forming of Girone Unico (the today's
Serie A) in 1929. The best performances in those years were
two 3rd places. It is considered one of the two black periods
of AC Milan.

The next period in the club history involves three Swedish
players (Gunnar Gren, Gunnar Nordahl and Nils Lledholm), forming
the GreNoLi trio. The Italian clubs were allowed in that period
to sign maximum five foreign players. Nordahl became the best
scorer who played for AC Milan ever, scoring and outstanding
210 goals in 257 matches, an average of 0.81 goals per match.
The others two were playing as midfielders. With this trio,
AC Milan won their next four Scudetto's.

At the end of the 50's three great players joined AC Milan.
One of them is Gianni Rivera brought with a high sum of money,
200.000 $, a record at that time, from Alessandria. The other
two are the Brazilian striker Jose Altafini and the Uruguayan
midfielder Schiaffino.

One of the greatest periods in Milan's history begun in early
60's with the purchase of Gianni Rivera. Rivera would bright
in the 1963 edition of the Champions Cup played against Benfica
Lisabona, when he made a great match that Milan won 2-1 with
two goals of the Brazilian Jose Altafini. In 1968 AC Milan
won the Scudetto and the Cup Winners Cup. Next year AC Milan
won their second Champions Cup in history, simply smashing
the Dutch side of Ajax Amsterdam, with a great 4-1 win. This
is also the year when Gianni Rivera won the European Footballer
of the Year award. Until the mid 70's AC Milan became the
most succesful Italian team, winning a Cup Winners Cup, being
finalists in another Cup Winners Cup and winning three Italian
Cups. The bad things were that Milan did not won the title
and that Rivera's career came to the end. This was the beginning
of the darkest period in the club's history.

We are talking now about the darkest period in AC Milan history,
although there were some bright moments, a Italian Cup win
in 1977 and a Scudetto in 1979. This is the best part of the
worst part. In the latest part of the 1980 season a scandal
about betting rised to the surface. There were involved in
this two players from Milan and the president Felice Colombo.
Due to their involvement, the club has been relegated for
the only time in history in Serie B. Also one of the best
parts of this period was the discovery of the sweeper Franco
Baresi. The adventure took only one year and AC Milan were
back in Serie A. They relegated once again, for the last time,
and in the second year in Serie B, more succesful than the
first one, Milan finished first and promoted in Serie A. This
dark period was over when the media billionaire, Silvio Berlusconi,
bought the team.

The new president brought some new people in the club. Through
them were Roberto Donadoni, the young Paolo Maldini and the
three Dutchmen (Marco van Basten, Frank Rijkaard and Ruud
Gullit). The new coach was the great midfielder of the 50's,
Nils Liedholm. Liedholm's coaching career was not going so
good and it was replaced by Ariggo Sacchi. With him at the
helm Milan had won the title in 1987. A new era started. Although
that was Sacchi's only Scudetto, he won on European and International
stage two Champions Cup, two Europeans Super Cups and two
Intercontinental Cups. The coach had a conflict with the Dutch
superstar Marco van Basten and the 1992 year brought a new
coach in AC Milan, Fabio Capello. He won four Serie A titles
in five years with a fantastic 1992 season when Milan hadn't
lost any of the matches played in the league. In the Champions
League they played the final in 1993, losing against Olimpique
Marseille with 1-0. The next year they won the Champions League
final with a great 4-0 win against FC Barcelona. The man of
the match was one of the most gifted players ever, the Yugoslavian
Dejan Savicevic. After those great times Capello went to coach
Real Madrid and a series of coaches came: Oscar Washington
Tabarez, Sacchi (2nd time), Capello (2nd time) , Zaccheroni
(Zac) and Fatih Terim. Zac won the 1999 title with AC Milan
with a great run in the last 10 matches, reaching Lazio from
behind and taking the lead.

In the 2000 season, Milan finished 3rd, after Lazio and Juventus.
AC Milan Ukrainian striker Andriy Shevchenko finished as Serie
A top scorer with 26 goals.

Season 2001 was very poor for Milan. Only the 6th position
in the league, and this was mainly because of the chain of
injuries that destroyed the team. Due to this injuries chain
Zac was sacked by Berlusconi in spring and Cesare Maldini
along with Tassotti took over until the summer. The greatest
achievement of all in this season was the 6-0 victory over
city rivals Internazionale in the league.

In the 2012 season, Milan finished 3rd, after Juventus and Napoli. Although this was rather disappointing, recent reports have confirmed that Milan have extended Brazilian striker Robinho's contract to the end of the 2015 season. It is likely that Milan will remain strong contenders for the 2013 season, and securing the contracts of superstar players like Robinho further supports this statement. Online sports books throughout Italy and England predict Juventus and Milan to be favourites for the 2013 Coppa Italia season. To find out more details on the latest sports odds, fixture lists and football news click here.